On November 19 – 21, 2018, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ) organized jointly with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Bangkok, Thailand, a regional practitioner workshop on juvenile justice in a counter-terrorism context. The workshop was held with the financial support of Canada and Switzerland and brought together judges, prosecutors, investigators, correction officers, social workers and lawyers from five South East Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand). The workshop complemented the ability of IIJ and UNODC to successfully work together based on their specific expertise and synergies in order to promote the implementation of international juvenile justice standards in national procedures and practices and provide capacity-building assistance in this regard.

The event was the fifth of the series of IIJ workshops, designed to assist with the operationalization of the GCTF’s Neuchâtel Memorandum on Juvenile Justice in a Counterterrorism Context. It was based on the Toolkit, specifically developed by IIJ for this purpose, and the UNODC Handbook on Children Recruited and Exploited by Terrorist and Violent Extremist Groups: The Role of the Justice System and its training manuals. In-depth discussions and group exercises aimed to explore how current national juvenile justice systems correspond to the international standards and good practices on the prevention of the recruitment and exploitation of children by terrorist and violent extremist groups, as well as the treatment of children in terrorism-related cases and identify areas where more work needs to be done. The discussions were facilitated by experts from Canada, Switzerland, the Juvenile Justice Core Initiative, ASEAN and the UN. Exercises and discussion results from the five workshops will be reflected in Practitioners’ Notes that the IIJ is compiling across the Initiative, which will then serve as a basis for the development of guidelines to reinforce the implementation of the Neuchâtel Memorandum Good Practices in national legislation and judicial procedures.

ABOUT THE IIJ

The International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law (IIJ) is an international institute established in 2014 by 12 member states. The IIJ provides rule of law-based training to lawmakers, police, prosecutors, judges, corrections officials, and other justice sector stakeholders on how to address terrorism and related transnational criminal activities within a rule of law framework.